Natalia Kryuchkova
Ukraine, Kyiv, Bucha
Israel, Haifa
“For me, the most difficult thing to deal with during the war was the constant fear for my children. They are the most precious part of my life, and I could not bear the thought of losing them. So, as soon as the war in Ukraine began, we fled from Kyiv to our village home in the Bucha region, believing we were escaping to a safer area. However, we ended up in one of the most dangerous places in Ukraine, where a horrific massacre of innocent civilians occurred.
My youngest daughter and I eventually escaped from Ukraine to Budapest, and from there, we made our way to Israel. My eldest son stayed behind in Ukraine. Despite having no military training, he enlisted in the army and has been fighting on the most dangerous fronts against the Russians for the past two years. His family – his wife and my granddaughter – fled to Poland but have since returned to Kyiv.
I remain constantly worried about them, as the war in Ukraine persists.
My daughter and I managed to escape from Ukraine, but the trauma from the war followed us to Israel. In Ukraine, the sounds of planes, explosions, and alarms terrified her and made it difficult for her to sleep at night. When the war in Israel broke out, those painful memories resurfaced. It was very challenging for her to cope with them. Every time she saw or heard a fighter plane in the sky, she would panic, wanting to run to the shelter out of fear that the plane might bomb us. She didn’t understand that the fighter jets in Israel were there to protect us, not to harm us. Refugees may flee from the physical dangers of war, but unfortunately, they cannot escape its psychological trauma.”